Drowning Out a National Election:   

Don't let a high-wire act or the roar of crowds in football matches drown out its importance. An entirely new House of Representatives will be chosen on Tuesday along with a third of the U.S. Senate and the governors of 36 states.

Among the distractions on election eve? Saturday, the television networks dumped their national newscasts on the West Coast in favor of college football and other sports programming.

The focus on live sports, even on the eve of an historic election, should not be a surprise.

Sports is the last bastion of live programing for the networks, given the fact it's still impossible to rely on streaming Internet feeds to provide this kind of coverage.

Besides determining who will run the country, this midterm election is also really a gauge of the media. We are now in an era of fragmented, on-demand viewing.

But the irony is that campaign spending on television advertisements has reached historic proportions. The total cost in the midterm races is projected to go past $4 billion nationwide for the first time.

Now to the high-wire act. There's a death defying stunt on Sunday night in which a daredevil will blindfold himself and walk a cable between two Chicago skyscrapers in a promotion for the Discovery Channel.

But the real nail biter, at least for those who care about the direction of the country, will be the election. NBC and the Wall Street Journal are now out with a new poll, showing 46% of those asked wanting a Republican-controlled congress with 45% leaning Democratic.

It going to be clearly up to each of us individually to keep the nation focused on what will be a monumental election, and, more importantly, to get out and vote.